January 8, 2018

Estudio Cinco is a group of four young thinkers within the field of architecture. Thier interest is in abandoned urban spaces in their hometown, Maputo, and it led them to conceptualize a way to bring new life to these forgotten areas. With an understanding of cinema as an art form that can allow people to connect on an emotional level, and recognizing that films made outside of Hollywood do not get space to be shown in Maputo, Estudio Cinco decided to combine their passion for film and their desire to see abandoned spaces differently. “What we do is try to give another chance to abandoned spaces. Through cinema we do that. We try to create cinema rooms in hidden spaces or spaces that have been left out of the urban dynamics,” explains Ana from Estudio Cinco. They have transformed stairways into temporary movie theatres, and aim to translate this idea into alarge-scalee festival titled the Maputo Cinema Festival. This idea also addresses the issue of access to films, which can be quite expensive in Maputo, as Will from Estudio Cinco explains. They are also hoping that their efforts will generate a stronger connection between film and other artistic disciplines in Maputo.

After finding out that AFROPUNK would be coming to Johannesburg, Will and Ana came to South Africa as representatives of their architecture collective. As a lead up to executing their cinema festival idea, Estudio Cinco is working with AFROPUNK to create a similar temporary movie theatre experience at the festival in Johannesburg. Sharing what they hope to achieve Ana expressed that, “We want to create a forum of young South African filmmakers where they can share community issues or celebrate things through cinema. We are trying to create a boost forum through film so people can watch very deep movies and party and the same time.”